RH detective sifted through rubble with canine companion

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Lewis Levine
Special to the News

POSTED:September 10, 2011 12:00 p.m.

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Richmond Hill Detective Doug Sahlberg visits the gravestone of his canine companion, a cadaver dog named Molly, who helped him sift through the rubble of the 9/11 attacks in New York City. (Lewis Levine)

Just as the memory of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination nearly 50 years ago forever is woven into the fabric of society, anyone old enough to remember the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on America likely can recall exactly where they were and what they were doing when word came that the Twin Towers in New York City had been hit by two commercial jets. More than 200 miles away, the Pentagon also had been attacked by terrorists using an airliner, and in Shanksville, Pa., another disaster narrowly was avoided when brave men and women sacrificed their lives and brought down a jet that hijackers likely intended to fly into another Washington, D.C., structure. For Doug Sahlberg, a detective with the Richmond Hill Police Department, the events that unfolded before the eyes of a horrified nation on Sept. 11 hold a special meaning for him. He and his faithful companion, Molly, a cadaver dog, went to New York City and for two weeks sifted through the mountains of rubble that had been the World Trade Center, searching for the remains of victims. Ten years later, the bond the two shared still weighs heavy in Sahlberg’s heart. He lost not only a partner, but a friend, when Molly died from complications nearly four years after their trek to the scarred city.